On holidays and other special occasions, Cretan men and women dressed in their finery, which they usually donned for the first time on Easter Sunday. Together with this formal attire they also wore all their jewellery.

Cretan traditional costume underwent several changes over the course of time. The definitive feature of male costume was the vraka, which was gradually abandoned from the early 20th century onwards, to be replaced by European clothes or military style jodhpurs known as the gilotta. Though typified by a high degree of variation, female costume went out of use very early on.